JOIN: Celebrating My Eight Year Blogiversary!

You may have noticed that things have changed a bit around here! This weekend, I updated the blogger header, picked a new theme, and imported all my posts from my Story Exploratory blog. Now everything is here so I can blog a little more broadly about writing but have everything in one place.

When I started blogging about books and writing in 2010, Peanut had just turned three, I was pregnant with Little Bean, and had finished work on my National Board certification. Eight years later and Little Bean is finishing up second grade. Next school year he'll be in third grade and Peanut will be in sixth grade which is the first year of middle school in our district. It's time to renew my National Board certification so I've been making plans to be able to start that process next year.

So much has changed and yet so much has stayed the same. I'm sitting on our back deck as the kids play football with my husband, Chad. We celebrated Mother's Day by going out to lunch with my family and soon we'll head inside to take showers and go through backpacks and get ready for the week.

Eight years ago I decided this blog would be about a celebration of books and how to use them as mentor texts. I had no idea how much my love of writing would grow, that I would start writing novels and picture books, that I would be part of an amazing virtual summer writing camp for teachers, that I would start to dream about one day being published, that I would try online writing contests, query agents, and sign with an agent, or that I would have books out on submission with publishers.

Who knows what the next eight years will bring! I'm excited to see how my love for writing will grow and what I'll learn about writing and what experiences will come my way. Thanks for being part of my writing journey! And for being here to celebrate with me, I have some gifts for you!

I have three awesome educational books courtesy of Scholastic to share. You can fill out the Google Form below to enter. I'll choose three separate winners in the continental US next Saturday, May 19th and announce the winners here on Sunday, May 20th.

One person will win Comprehensive Literacy

by Patricia L. Scharer.

One person will win The Megabook of Fluency

by Timothy V. Rasinski and Melissa Cheesman Smith.

One person will win

The Writing Teacher's Companion by Ralph Fletcher.

Also, as you may know, Teachers Write will be back this summer and the sign up is already open. Being part of a writing community like Teachers Write has seriously changed my life and played a huge role in me seeing myself as a writer. Connecting with other writers is an important part of my writing life.

To celebrate the power of being connected as a writer, I've blocked off time on Monday, May 28th to talk with 10 people who sign up for a personal writing conference with me. This will be first come, first served and we'll connect via Google Hangout. You'll have the option to share a short piece of writing with me ahead of time if you'd like or we can just talk about your writing life in general. It doesn't matter whether you have been writing for a long time or are new to writing. It also doesn't matter what you write. All writers count, all writers are welcome. Each writing conference will last 20-25 minutes. I've never done this before so we'll see how it goes and if there is a lot of interest, I might find another day during the summer to offer this again.

To sign up for a writing conference with me, click the link below. Then click where it says, "Next available appointment slot on May 28, 2018." From there, choose a time slot that works for you and click "Save". This will save the appointment to your Google Calendar and reserve the spot with me. You will need to be signed into a Google account to be able to do this. I'll send you an email confirmation the week before our chat with more information.

Thanks again for celebrating with me and for reading my blog! I'm so glad to share my love of books and writing and to connect with you. Don't forget to enter the book giveaway or to sign up for a writing conference. xo